[Info-vax] bizarre SMTP problem

[Bob Eager]

On Thu, 9 Apr 2009 23:09:42 UTC, sapienzaf <sapienza at noesys.com> wrote:

> On Apr 9, 6:02 pm, hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---
> remove CLOTHES to reply) wrote:
> > Not completely, since "@" anywhere but at the beginning is NOT parsed as
> > in DCL.
> 
> <sigh>  Clearly you're as eager as Bob Eager to jump without
> understanding the context.

<sigh> I suppose I think you're the first person to try that 'joke'...

> Look folks, it's really quite simple.  Go back and read up on the CLI
> utility routines.  The '+' is used to seperate parameters.  It's
> documented.  The calling application processes each parameter in
> turn.  It's clear that Mail is just using the CLI routines and saying
> "give me the first value in the list of parameters", then "give me the
> next value in the list of parameters", etcetera.

Then, just perhaps, Mail could not use the CLI routines. However, I 
probably wouldn't agree with that.

> Furthermore, as I pointed out earlier, there's an ambiguity.  If
> there's no explicit use of the SMTP% prefix, then the presence of the
> '+' can be interpreted as EITHER a parameter seperator or part of an
> SMTP address.  Some of you think the presence of the '@' other than in
> the first character position should change CLIs parsing rules.  Yet,
> CLI isn't the application (Mail is) and Mail can't change CLI's rules.

But it could avoid them.

> The way to get rid of the ambiguity is to be explicit by using the SMTP
> % prefix followed by a quoted string containing the SMTP address.

That's fine. So there is a bug, in the documentation. This is not 
mentioned as a problem.

-- 
Bob Eager